


Choices, Chances, Changes

by Azlyn



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Anxiety, First Kiss, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pre-Episode 5, Victor actually says the right thing, Yuuri has a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 09:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10533891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Azlyn/pseuds/Azlyn
Summary: Yuuri's anxiety has him dreading the upcoming qualifying competitions, and Victor is more observant than Yuuri had anticipated.





	

 

Even months into their training, Victor was still faster than him. 

Yuuri caught up to where his coach had slowed to a stop a few seconds later, bending over to plant his hands on his knees and catch his breath, blood pounding through his veins and sweat dripping down his face. 

Yuuri had been halfway through his daily run before breakfast, a grueling but necessary ritual, when he had been suddenly scared out of his internal debate on how likely it was that he could get away with sneaking an extra snack in before heading back to the rink when a flash of silver flew past him with a chirp of _"On your left!"_ and an irritatingly cheerful wave.

Victor almost never came with him on his runs anymore, not since Yurio had left after the Hot Springs on Ice; apparently, he trusted Yuuri to undertake the task on his own now. Yuuri would never admit to it aloud, but he actually kind of missed Victor's ridiculous back-handed compliments and spectacularly unencouraging words of encouragement as he rode beside Yuuri on his bike. He had a long way to go as a coach, that much was certain, but his company had been entertaining, if occasionally offensive; it had made the time pass more quickly. 

Yuuri had no idea what Victor usually did while he was out, but for some reason today he had decided to join his student in the last stretch of his morning jog, flying past Yuuri and then circling back and surging ahead again like some sort of attention-deficit puppy pulling on its leash, urging Yuuri to go faster. Yuuri just kept at the same pace he had been jogging the whole time and waited for Victor to wear himself out.

While Victor had speed, he didn't quite have Yuuri's stamina, and eventually he had started to lag more and more until he slowed to a halt by a shady thicket of trees a little ways off the paved path they had taken. 

Yuuri felt like he could keep going for a little longer, but he glanced over to see Victor breathing hard, face flushed and hands perched on his hips as he gazed out across the open expanse of the park and tried to catch his breath, and Yuuri suddenly decided that maybe stopping to take in the view wasn't such a bad idea.

A gust of wind stirred the oppressively hot air and rustled the leaves above them, making dappled spots of sunshine on the shaded ground dance wildly; Yuuri was watching them play off the silver of Victor's hair, the way it glowed like a halo about his head, breeze playing with the wisps that framed his face, until Victor glanced back and caught him staring. Yuuri quickly averted his gaze to a point over Victor's shoulder, feeling the tips of his ears burn. 

Victor didn't seem to think anything of it. “You want to take a break or keep going?” he asked Yuuri as if he hadn't been the one to stop first, but just as Yuuri opened his mouth to remind him of that very fact, the retort seemed to dissolve on his tongue when Victor turned towards him and ran a hand through messy bangs, sweat-soaked shirt clinging to his body and stretching over his chest in a way that should simply _not be allowed_. Were all of his shirts a size too small? Did Victor not try on his clothes before he bought them? Because this was just ridiculous, honestly, and just slightly distracting. Just slightly.

He remembered to stutter out an answer when he realized Victor was still looking at him. “Oh, um— I mean, it's really hot today, so… Shouldn't we pace ourselves? Maybe we should take a break,” he offered, partly for Victor's sake and partly because watching that droplet of sweat roll down Victor's throat was making him very, very weak. 

Victor hummed in apparent consideration, cocking a hip and tapping a finger against his upper lip. 

“Perhaps you're right, Yuuri,” he finally allowed, a tone to his voice that suggested Yuuri should be thankful for this reprieve granted to him by his gracious coach.

Yuuri just barely managed to withhold an almighty eyeroll and sank down to the ground, lying back in the cool, shaded grass and giving his aching muscles a brief respite.

Victor chose that moment to add brightly, “ _But_ , I may have to tack on another mile to our route if we're going to stop and let our heart rates drop.”

Yuuri let out a groan and rolled over as if he could hide from Victor's terrible words by smooshing his face into the grass, but then Victor said something even worse.

“After all, calories burn faster the harder your blood is pumping! And you have some extra to burn after last night, don't you.”

Yuuri’s eyes flew open and he sat straight up, paling. “W-wait, how do you–?”

“Don't think I missed the empty ice cream carton in your room this morning, Yuuri.”

_Damn it._

A defeated noise escaped Yuuri's throat and he flopped back down on the ground, slinging an arm across his face.

Victor sighed quietly, and Yuuri heard his footsteps rustle through the grass until he stopped short and settled down beside Yuuri, who peeked up at him from underneath his arm to find Victor's eyes already waiting to meet his. He quickly dropped his arm back down, hoping it also covered the flush that was creeping onto his cheeks. 

As much of an airhead as Victor could be sometimes, Yuuri couldn't hide anything from him; it was embarrassing.

“Yuuri.”

Swallowing, Yuuri let the arm slide from his face to lay across his chest, turning his head aside, away from Victor. He gazed absently across the park, until his attention was caught by a particularly ear-splitting shriek of laughter from a pair of small children chasing after their dog with a can of spray-on sunscreen. It was a toy poodle, with sandy brown fur and the patience of a saint, apparently. The dog trotted just fast enough to evade the children, but it was clearly loving the attention. The scene reminded Yuuri so much of Vicchan, his chest ached.

“...know how quickly you put on weight,” Victor was chiding him. “You’re not thinking about the competition, Yuuri.”

Yuuri tried to pull himself back into the present, but his thoughts were drowning out Victor's words of reproach.

The competition. Right.

No, Yuuri was definitely thinking about it. He was definitely thinking about his qualifying performance at the JFS Championships in one week, three days, four hours, and (he glanced at his watch again) twenty-seven minutes. Victor need not fear. He had the whole "thinking about it" thing covered. During breakfast, in the shower, on his runs, in the rink, and all through the night he thought about it. Thought about himself shaking, slipping, falling, crashing, or even worse – freezing. Forgetting the next step in his program. His mind blank. Paralyzed before a murmuring audience. Eyes flying to Victor at the end of the rink and seeing disappointment in his face. 

Yuuri thought about it. Not to worry.

But last night Yuuri had decided he was _sick_ of thinking about it, and that's precisely what prompted his midnight binge in the first place. He didn’t expect Victor to understand his mind’s warped reasoning for undermining himself; Yuuri couldn’t quite understand it himself. All he knew was that food was a comfort, and the thought of being under the spotlight and the scrutiny of a panel of judges again after last season’s disaster sent him diving for the fridge in an attempt to forestall another spiral into repetitive mental replays of everything that had ever gone wrong for him in competition.

It was _different_ when he was in the moment, the heat of a competition performance. No matter how much he practiced an element of his routine, whether it be a quad or something that came as naturally to him as a step sequence, it was like all bets were off once he got out onto the smooth, shining ice of an unfamiliar rink, standing alone under the stadium lights in front of thousands of unfamiliar faces, staring at him, eyes either impassive or expectant, cameras catching and recording his every move, spectators screaming at him and whispering to each other, their expectations of him like a physical burden on his chest as he moved through his program, the one chance he had to make an impression on them – and it all had him shaking and forgetting to breathe and scattering the hundreds of run-throughs he had done in training from his memory. 

Hot Springs on Ice had been terrifying enough, and that wasn't even a real competition, with _Victor_ judging them, not official adjudicators who had power over his ranking, his reputation, his future. He had been surrounded by friendly faces, inhabitants of Hasetsu he had grown up knowing, and it was like having a safety net to catch him if he made a fool of himself on the ice. 

And still he had nearly spiraled into a panic attack right before the performance.

He’s wondered if this sort of thing was supposed to get better with experience, because he has never felt less like shaking apart before a performance as he continued to progress in his skating career. 

A lost cause, that's what he was. Give him an opportunity to grow and he shook. After three months, he still couldn't understand why Victor Nikiforov – skating legend, reigning world champion, Yuuri's idol since childhood, the face of the posters on his walls, who had probably never experienced performance anxiety in his life – would come to train him; how did Yuuri deserve this? Who was he to take Victor from the skating world? Who was he to drag Victor down with him? And for such disappointing recompense. Victor _saw_ what happened at the Grand Prix Final last season, and then he _saw_ Yuuri before Hot Springs on Ice. Did he think that would get better with time? That just went to show how little Victor truly knew Yuuri. At least Celestino knew not to expect so much of him.

Victor's voice snapped him from his thoughts.

“Yuuri, look at me. _Yuuri._ ”

Blinking, Yuuri turned his head so he was peering up at his coach sitting beside him, silver brows drawn together in a frown.

“You're not focusing today,” Victor noted, eyes flickering over Yuuri's face, the purposefully annoying front from earlier gone – in its place there was a seriousness to his expression that Yuuri didn't often see. "What’s on your mind?"

Yuuri swallowed. He looked back up at the sky, because he was terrible at lying to people's faces.

“Nothing.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Believe what you want, then.”

“Yuuri, please talk to me.”

Silence.

“I can't help you if you refuse to tell me what's wrong, Yuuri.”

“There's nothing for you to fix. I'm not a broken toy for you to tinker with.”

“What? I never–” 

Victor cut himself off with a sigh of frustration.

Yuuri stared stubbornly up at the sea of blue above him. The cicadas’ song was deafening.

“Look,” Victor tried again, voice softer this time. “Whatever it is that’s bothering you, you have to think of the consequences of your eating habits, Yuuri. It’s important. Those habits can have an effect on your performance.”

Yuuri bristled. “It’s not a _habit_ ,” he snapped. “It’s... I can’t help it, okay?”

Victor was silent for a moment, studying him.

“You eat when you want to take your mind off of something,” Victor murmured. "You're anxious to perform in a real competition again, aren't you?" 

Yuuri didn't reply.

“You think it will be a repeat of your last Grand Prix Final,” Victor ventured further, and Yuuri continued not to correct him.

Victor sighed again and rubbed his chin. Then he sent Yuuri’s mind reeling when he suddenly laid down beside him so their arms brushed at their sides and their heads were barely a foot from each other, Victor folding his fingers together atop his stomach and looking up to the clouds with Yuuri.

Yuuri swallowed, heart beating faster, but he kept his eyes locked firmly upward. He didn’t know what his poor heart would do if he were to turn his head to the side and find Victor’s eyes searching his from just inches away.

“That night,” Victor began after a while, and Yuuri knew which night he was talking about, stomach twisting at the mention of it, “it changed me. I saw such…unbridled passion, such _life_ in you.”

Yuuri blinked.

... _What?_

Perhaps the night of the Grand Prix Final his eyes had been shining brighter and his blood thrumming faster, but those things were because of tears and panic, respectively.

Not...whatever Victor was talking about.

What _was_ Victor talking about?

“At the time I had already been thinking about next season’s program,” Victor continued, “and I knew then that you had inside you exactly what it would take to bring the Eros routine to life. And then I saw the video of you, skating my routine… Even when you weren’t in top condition, you were masterful, _breathtaking_.”

Yuuri felt a flush warming his cheeks, gaze fixed on a point off the horizon. Why was Victor saying such things to him? The praise made his mind go fuzzy.

"But, seeing that video... It also frustrated me."

Oh.

Yuuri's stomach lurched in dread – here it was, now his idol was finally going to tell him what he really thought and just what was wrong with his form and technique and just how annoying it was to have amateurs trying to copy him and–

"It confused me to no end that I hadn't seen you at any of the competitions for the rest of the season, after the Grand Prix," Victor continued, and Yuuri's brain paused its meltdown as he processed the words. "I followed up on your results afterward, and it just didn't add up. In that video, you had a fluidity crafted from years, almost decades of hard training. And that should have transferred to any performance, yet..." Victor trailed off, another frustrated sigh escaping his lips. "But I quickly realized it wasn't anything to do with your physicality or training that had held you back."

Yuuri could feel Victor's eyes on him. Yuuri looked out across the sunny expanse of the park again, and he found that the two children and their toy poodle were gone.

"Vicchan," he finally murmured, responding to Victor's unspoken request for confirmation. "He...he passed away right before my performance at the Final. I was distracted. I just wanted to go home."

"Yes," Victor said gently, "Hiroko told me. It's understandable you had difficulty focusing for that performance. But it was more than that, wasn't it? What held you back for the rest of the season?"

Yuuri swallowed, stomach churning again at having to think about the humiliating string of losses, wishing he could just delete the memories from his mind. "I... I remember Celestino always used to say I pay for my physical stamina with mental stamina," he said quietly, fingers absently pulling up handfuls of grass beside him. "I guess that's true. I was just... Tired. Losing motivation. Forgetting what all of this was for. Scared I had been wasting my time all these years." His eyes tracked a cloud's slow trek across the sky, unseeing. "Every time I got out in front of an audience again, I just got so homesick, and I... I wondered what life I would have if I'd never left."

"So you thought you weren't good enough."

Yuuri paused, blinking. "Well... Yeah. I wasn't. I think that made itself pretty clear by the end of the season," he said with an empty laugh. 

"Oh," Victor breathed, as if he had found the final piece to a puzzle that formed a heartbreaking image. "You don't even see it, do you?"

Yuuri finally turned his head to look at him, and he had forgotten that he wasn’t supposed to do that because Victor’s eyes were there waiting for him and he realized just how very close they were, Victor’s breath fanning across his face, and Yuuri could feel his heart skip.

"W-what?" he stuttered. "See what?

"What I see. What I've seen since the day I met you."

Yuuri swallowed, brown eyes flickering between the blue ones that watched him a little sadly, waiting for Victor to continue.

“You were my new muse, Yuuri," Victor whispered. "I crafted the Eros routine for you alone, to lure out the side of you I had glimpsed one night long ago. You brought such light and color to my life when I thought my inspiration was all but dead, and... I don’t know how to thank you for that.”

Yuuri blinked.

Oh.

_Oh._

“My job now,” Victor said in a murmur, his gaze freezing Yuuri in place, “is to bring out the confidence you need to realize the potential thrumming within you.”

Yuuri didn’t really know what to say, transfixed by the striking blue of the irises piercing his. Surely Yuuri had never met anyone with such iridescent eyes, the colors seeming to shift in the light.

What was this feeling…?

He had only ever experienced it when he was close like this to Victor.

This curious mixture of anxiousness and contentment…

Victor was bringing a hand to Yuuri’s face, and just like that Yuuri’s thoughts scattered in a million directions. His fingers came to brush Yuuri’s bangs from his eyes, and Yuuri thought he was going to melt into a puddle of flustered discombobulation, cheeks on fire.

“Yuuri,” Victor whispered like a song, soft eyes shining, “I have the utmost faith in you. You can bring life to your skating like nothing I’ve ever witnessed, and you can make your name feared this season. You just have to have a little faith in _me_. Let go of your past, and let me mold you.”

Victor’s hand hadn’t left his face. His fingertips were drifting softly down Yuuri’s cheek now, reverent, and it was like every one of of Yuuri's senses had narrowed their focus solely to the tasks of following the path of Victor's touch across his skin and watching that little heart-shaped smile curve Victor's lips.

_I have the utmost faith in you._

Some restless, endlessly pacing feeling in Yuuri's chest seemed to settle at Victor's words, a slow warmth blooming in its place.

Victor brushed a thumb across Yuuri’s cheekbone and Yuuri couldn’t help but let his eyes flutter shut at the touch, leaning into it, heart hammering in his throat, and before he lost his nerve he brought his own hand up to curl his fingers around Victor’s wrist.

“ _Hai_ ,” Yuuri finally whispered back. “Okay.”

The soft, private moment stretched on, and Yuuri would’ve liked to stay in it forever, hiding from the sun’s heat in the shade with Victor, the maple leaves rustling over their heads in the summer breeze, holding onto his hand and feeling his breath ghost Yuuri’s cheeks.

Victor’s hand withdrew from Yuuri’s face, and Yuuri didn’t even have time to smother the disappointment that started to well up in him at the absence before Victor had gently laced their fingers together, watching with amusement as Yuuri stared wide-eyed at their joined hands and flushed even harder.

“We’re in this together, _solnyshko_ ,” Victor said softly, eyes flickering between Yuuri’s, and Yuuri had never seen this side of him before, intense and tender all at once, so different from the theatrical and brutally forthright nature Victor usually adopted, different from the uncompromising and blunt coach he knew, searching his eyes like he needed Yuuri to understand, and Yuuri was beginning to realize that, perhaps… perhaps Victor wasn’t so invulnerable as he tried to appear. Perhaps he got anxious, too. Perhaps he got lonely, too.

Victor squeezed his fingers lightly. “We win and we lose together. Don’t forget that.”

Yuuri couldn’t tear his eyes away from the way their fingers were overlapping, woven together, warm and secure. He worried at his bottom lip. “That’s… sort of the problem,” he finally said.

Victor’s brows drew together slightly, frowning in confusion, a question in his eyes.

“I’m used to losing,” Yuuri continued quietly. “I hate looking weak in front of people, but… I’m used to it. That isn’t what’s bothering me, not really.”

Victor opened his mouth, looking like he want to protest Yuuri’s self-deprecation, but Yuuri went on, not meeting his gaze. “My mistakes, I’m used to bearing them as my own. But now… Now the world’s watching, and my failures are going to reflect on you, too. I…" He swallowed thickly. "I don’t want to drag you down with me.”

Victor’s mouth clicked shut, features smoothing out in understanding. He sat up, hair disheveled from where he had been lying in the grass, still holding Yuuri’s hand in his, and the sun shining behind him gave him a hazy, golden aura as he looked fiercely into Yuuri’s eyes from above.

“Yuuri, I want you to listen to me, and listen closely. This was my choice, and absolutely nothing that happens in competition could ever make me ashamed to be your coach. I _know_ what you are capable of, and whatever the world chooses to see doesn’t change that.”

Yuuri watched, stunned, as Victor brought their joined hands to his lips and pressed a kiss to the back of Yuuri’s hand. It was like a swarm of butterflies had just come alive in his stomach, making his breath stutter, cheeks heating.

“V-Victor.”

“You understand?” Victor asked softly, but his gaze was still fierce, willing Yuuri to comprehend.

Yuuri bit his lip, eyes flicking from their hands to Victor's face. “I… Yes. Yes. I think I do.”

The sharp intensity faded from Victor’s eyes, his features softening. 

“Good,” he whispered back.

Their eyes searched each other’s for a long moment, brown on blue, until Yuuri realized Victor was leaning down, and Yuuri's breath caught in his throat. Victor’s free hand came up to touch Yuuri’s cheek again, their joined hands pressed into the grass between them; Yuuri was pretty sure his heart just hiccupped in shock.

Victor bumped their foreheads together, a small smile crinkling his eyes at the corners, his breath warm and ticklish against Yuuri’s cheeks, and Yuuri smiled shyly back despite the nervousness bubbling up in his throat. Yuuri could see every fleck of brilliant color in Victor’s irises shading into each other, every silver lash framing those pretty eyes. Victor was staring at him just as reverently as Yuuri was Victor.

Yuuri blinked when Victor's hand left his cheek to hold it out between them.

"Promise me, Yuuri," Victor murmured into the space between their lips, "that you'll let me know when you're feeling low again, instead of bottling it up to hold alone."

Yuuri didn’t think it was possible to feel any more strongly towards the man before him than he did already, but as it turned out, he was wrong.

Then he realized what Victor was holding his hand out for, and a smile grew unbidden on his face.

"Hmm, a pinkie swear?" Yuuri mused, regarding the extended little finger before him. "That's pretty serious. You know the Japanese vow for pinkie swears?"

Victor's eyes sparkled with suppressed amusement. "Ah, I believe there's something about swallowing a thousand needles if one breaks the promise."

Yuuri hummed. "Well, looks like I'd better keep it, then," he said softly, eyes downcast at their hands as he entwined their little fingers together.

He couldn’t help but think that if he told the Yuuri from three months ago what was happening right now, he would be laughed into the next town. Yuuri was still in a state of disbelief now, and here Victor was, making pinkie promises with one hand and squeezing Yuuri's fingers with the other.

_Let this be real_ , he thought dazedly as the tips of their noses brushed; their breath was mingling; Victor’s eyes were falling shut, and Yuuri supposed he should close his, too. He leaned in just an inch closer and felt his lips touch Victor’s, and he finally slotted their mouths together and god, it was like heaven.

It was warm; the sunshine, his hands, his lips.

Victor’s mouth was gentle against his, and Yuuri curled the hand he'd promised with into the front of Victor’s shirt to ground himself. Their kisses were chaste, really; Victor was taking it slow and soft, and Yuuri was grateful because he wanted to savor this, draw it out in his memory; the simple press of lips, tentative, learning each other, noses bumping a little, hands curiously touching cheeks, necks, shoulders – something about it set Yuuri’s heart _racing_ and had him absolutely breathless. After a while, he lost count of how many times they kissed, moving his hand to card fingers through unfairly soft hair and feeling his head spin when Victor hummed contentedly against his mouth.

At some point, Victor pulled Yuuri into his lap, hands running up and down his back, and Yuuri was melting into him, sighing and pressing impossibly closer, arms wrapping around his neck. He had never been so close to him, never had so much of his body pressed against Victor's at once. The familiar spice of Victor’s cologne was heady this close up, and Yuuri couldn’t help the embarrassing little sounds that kept escaping him as Victor kissed him soundly, gently. But Victor’s grip tightened on him when a particularly breathy noise came out, stilling as if he was restraining himself, his breathing labored, and he pulled back just slightly – hesitantly. Yuuri resisted the urge to push their mouths back together, because that was something he could _do_ now, and something he could later, when he felt like it, and _wow_ was that a dizzying thought...

"I've wanted you," Victor eventually whispered against Yuuri's mouth, lips touching with every syllable, "for so long. This is... surreal."

Yuuri's stomach dropped. His mind raced to a lifetime of collected posters, to the tradition of watching his idol's every competition on the Ice Castle's TV with Yuko, to the secret feverish warmth that would settle in his belly as he watched the silver-haired skater move his body across the screen with enviable grace, to the nights where he would lie in bed sleepless with tortured yearning, because how could he even hope to share the ice with such an untouchable masterpiece?

Surreal didn't even begin to cover it.

"You have no idea," Yuuri whispered back fervently, fingers curling tight in silver strands.

Victor mumbled something in Russian against Yuuri’s mouth and before Yuuri could react he took Yuuri's bottom lip between his teeth, pulling lightly, and Yuuri let out a soft moan when Victor's tongue immediately followed to sooth the bite, opening his mouth to let Victor deepen the kiss, and the taste of him, the heat of him, the press of his body against Yuuri's was making it hard to think – his cheeks burned as Victor's hands trailed down to grip him by the hips and tug him even further into Victor's lap, and Yuuri was doing all he could to keep up with Victor's feverish pace. The only thing he could think at this point was that he wanted _more._ More skin, more contact, more privacy to explore the ideas his pleasure-muddled brain was feeding him.

“V-Victor,” he gasped shakily as Victor pulled away to press kisses along Yuuri’s jaw, hands tightening in Victor’s hair. “We’re in p-public, someone migh..." He trailed off with a sigh, unable to remember what he was going to say with Victor's soft mouth trailing down his throat. " _Ah-_ Victor… S-so good…”

Yuuri felt Victor’s lips stretch into a smile against his skin. “Indecisive, hmm?”

Yuuri answered with a gasp as Victor nipped at his pulse point before soothing it with his tongue, and the sensation had Yuuri shivering and squirming on Victor's lap before he realized what he was doing – Victor had gone carefully still, biting his lip hard as he choked back a moan.

Yuuri froze and felt the blood rush to his face, mortified. “Oh, god, I-I’m sorry, I don’t- I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s fine, Yuuri,” Victor assured him, voice hoarse and deeper than usual, “More than fine. Just... maybe not here.” His gaze on Yuuri was heavy, hands still gripping Yuuri's hips, and blood was rushing south as Yuuri took in the sight of Victor, flushed and panting and disheveled. “I'd like to have you to myself.”

Yuuri swallowed down the embarrassing noise that was about to escape his throat. “ _Showers,_ ” he blurted out, “There’s private showers. Yu-topia. No one will walk in on us.”

“A shower isn’t a bad idea, either,” Victor chuckled as Yuuri scrambled off of Victor’s lap, definitely _not_ looking down at what he’d done to Victor, helping him up and getting distracted when Victor tugged him close and kissed him again, until finally Yuuri pulled away to grab him by the hand and take off back down the trail they had jogged earlier at a dead sprint.

Yuuri didn’t think he’d run faster in his life.

 

~

 

“Hello, boys!” Hiroko greeted pleasantly from behind the front desk as her son and his coach plowed through the reception area. 

“Good morning, Hiroko!” chirped Victor with a cheerful wave as her son dragged him down the hallway towards the steam room and showers. A door slammed and the commotion was gone as suddenly as it had appeared.

“What the hell was _that?_ A stampede?” came Mari’s voice from another room.

Hiroko chuckled to herself and went back to reviewing today’s reservations.

Toshiya came padding into the reception from the hallway a moment later, a puzzled look on his face.

“Did Victor and Yuuri just go into the same shower room?” he asked.

“Oh, I don’t know,” Hiroko replied with a shrug. “I suppose that would be more water efficient, though.”

Toshiya quirked an eyebrow in disbelief. “Yes, water efficient. I’m sure that’s what they’re concerned with.”

“Why don’t you pop in and ask them, then, darling?” Hiroko deadpanned, sifting through the record book.

Toshiya paled, and Hiroko laughed at the faintly disturbed expression that crossed his face.

“Water efficient it is, then.”

 


End file.
